Kane, who died eight years after Tim Burton's 1989 movie hit theaters, always seemed to have Hollywood in his sights, despite being a Bronx boy.

Despite having breathed life into the Dark Knight and his seedy Gotham City, BobKane preferred the sunny climes of Los Angeles.

Kane, who created Batman with help from artists BillFinger and JerryRobinson, always seemed to have Hollywood in his sights, despite being a Bronx boy. Born Robert Kahn in 1918 (he changed his name when he turned 18), Kane turned to the movies he loved -- like 1926's The Bat and 1930's TheBat Whispers -- as well as pulp heroes Zorro and The Shadow to create his crime-fighter. The comic industry's first superstar, Kane lived the life of a debonair playboy.

He retired from official Batman duty in 1966, just as the TV series took off, and moved to California, where he painted, hobnobbed with such celebrities as Muhammad Ali, Fidel Castro and Francis FordCoppola and tried his hand at screenwriting. (He and his wife, Elizabeth, occasionally went on double dates with Marvel's StanLee, who moved to L.A. in the '70s.)

"He always wanted Batman to be on the screen, that was his dream," says Elizabeth. Tim Burton's Batman hit theaters in 1989 -- eight years before Kane died.